


Ten Things That Pull Apart And One Thing That Holds Together

by tkp (lettered)



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Domestic, F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-08-11
Updated: 2006-08-11
Packaged: 2017-10-10 01:52:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/93907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lettered/pseuds/tkp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snippets of life in a world where B/A are together post-NFA.  Devil's always in the details.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ten Things That Pull Apart And One Thing That Holds Together

**i. unfamiliarity**

Buffy's still abed. Angel's not. Watching him struggle to pull on his pants (something she's never seen him do, such a human thing) she blurts, "Did you gain weight?"

"I--What?" His eyes are smaller than they used to be.

"It's just . . . you look . . . I thought you couldn't?" _Forehead looks like it's gonna crash down like a garage door,_ Xander said one time. Bury Angel's eyes in folds of flesh.

"Couldn't what?"

"You're like on Atkins, Slimfast style." _A high forehead is noble,_ who was that? said one time, sounds Victorian, Giles-ian. Was Angel still noble?

"Aren't those like those milkshakes things?"

"I mean you only eat like liquid meat," Buffy says. He's different now, with his girthier gut, something paunchier about his face, beefier arms. Did she know him?

"Blood isn't liquid meat."

"They don't use pounds here," she says, sudden shift; "And I still don't know how much a kilo weighs. Everything is different." Would she know him if his wolf-slash cheekbones filled up completely, bulging chipmunkish? If his brow really did stoop down so far that the noble stooped too, stooped to killing and risking everything out of--what was it in that alley, boredom?

"You'll get used to it. Dawn has. She likes it because she thinks she weighs less."

"Italy isn't Jenny Craig. The number's not the same but her weight still is." Would she know him if the weight of the world had smooshed him thick and pudgy, less a man than he was before, buried his eyes? Would she know him if his eyes were buried?

"See? Little things are different," he says."Big things stay the same."

_If I were blind, I'd find you,_ and no one said that, no one at all. It was a dream.

 

**ii. disillusionment**

Buffy's watering the plants. Angel's taking apart the little attachments on the vaccuum. "You didn't do behind the couch," he explains.

"Who's going to see behind the couch?" Buffy wants to know.

"No one. It's just, crumbs get down there."

"But if no one's going to see, it doesn't matter."

"It matters," Angel mutters. He runs the slender arm of the vacuum down along the floorboard behind the couch.

Yesterday, Buffy decided to use American cheese instead of the special cheese the recipe called for. Last week, they missed the ice show because of a batch of particularly nasty demons, and she never did download a recording of it off the internet. She didn't miss her father, either. Three months ago they'd lost a vamp they were tracking, and she called killing the other dozen, "good enough." Last year another Slayer had died and she had said, "it happens. It always fucking happens; that's life."

Angel's vacuuming under the cushions in the couch, now, in the crease between the back and seat, and Buffy's telling him not to. "It doesn't matter," she says again.

"It matters," Angel says again. "What we do." The cushions feel soft in his hands as he positions them back on the couch.

"We don't have time. Just do what you can and leave the rest."

Years ago, Buffy had died. It happened; that was life. She came back and it was good enough.

"I need to dust the table," Angel says.

"I already did."

Angel looked at the grayish wood. He liked to use that Endust stuff, the kind that made the wood gleam, the kind that caught the light. Buffy never used that stuff any more. Everything used to be so shiny. Now neither of them could see their reflections in anything around them.

 

**iii. allocation**

Buffy's taking forever. Angel hasn't had a chance. "You done yet?"

His voice startles her. "Gah. If I wanted the stuck in a socket look, I'd be done now, thanks."

"You've been in here thirty minutes."

He's snuck up while she's facing mirrorward enough times that it shouldn't surprise her. This is where they really get their style on, Angel stalking and Buffy spazzing, Angel in her life and her not knowing unless she can be in his arms. "Bouncy Buffy hair takes just as long as sticky up hair. But with way less gel."

"I don't take this long. Is the toothpaste gone?"

For a moment of inanity there's no room in here, no room for toothpaste. He's too big in here, no space, shouldering her out until it's just him him him. She takes a breath. "You just have to squeeze it. I don't see why you need a vanity, anyway. I mean, aside from the aptness of what it's called which come on, is the aptist apt."

"So you want me to shave in the kitchen sink? It's my bathroom."

His his his, isn't it, it's always been; he can fit in her life but she can't fit in his. _I want my life to be with you_, but he didn't. His guilt holds him apart, his poor-tortured-self so separate, his darkness so special he can decide it all. "I thought it was ours."

"I just . . . wish you would squeeze the toothpaste up to the top. It's not that hard."

_Can't you let me decide what's best for us Buffy,_ it's not that hard. "Excuse me?"

"Look, I'm sorry. I'm just . . . used to being alone."

Buffy looks into the mirror, at the empty space where he should be. "So am I."

 

**iv. jealousy**

Buffy is talking on the phone. Angel never does, himself. She turns from him. "Perfect," she answers. "Should shave my eyebrows off for a real reunion; you'd appreciate that, huh? But I missed him so, so much. It's just nice seeing him."

She's sitting down, standing up, back and forth, crackling energy in every move she makes, tight packed like ass in jeans, like the blond in her hair: electric. Not him; he's dead. But Frankenstein got zapped to life and dead things walk, living out their lives through the ends of cigarettes, bright burning self-extensions. Angel doesn't smoke, himself. Not him.

"Yeah! We have equal feet now." A pause. "Footing. I mean like we're partners now. Before it was always me, Tarzan, him . . . Xander-not-Jane."

Talking overbright, humor backlash to hurt, it was a trick Angel never used himself, and Buffy isn't talking about him. Sometimes he thinks she's a rockstar love, that moment in the lime light love, made-to-fade love, then love her from afar. Not like a song, because he can't sing; not like a poem, because he can't rhyme. He's not interactive, not electric, not burning bright and blond.

He liked the poems, because he likes to listen, loom, father, lord over from afar. He watched the world and when he tried to change it all of it was doodles of her and him, everyone one he's known and loved and created--but not he himself, not Angel, doesn't know what he looks like now.

When Buffy hangs up, Angel fumes, "Does he even ask about me? You and me," he amends.

She scowls and says, "Not everything's about you you know."

He knows. When she catches the scent of cigarette smoke she still tilts her head and looks, looks for someone. Not him.

 

**v. mistrust**

Angel leaves a light on so he can email on his computer when Buffy is trying to sleep. Angel writes emails. Angel has a computer.

The "P" in PTB rhymes with T and is not followed by a C. A twohundredsome vampire who'd been to Hell should not get to play with a Dell. It's just wrong, and the clicking mouse drives her crazy. Whatever happened to eating rodents; that was respectably Anne Rice.

Buffy lies awake, turning her head to stare blankly at the blue glow from the lit screen illuminating the opposite wall. He's so L.A., now, straight and sleek and tall, like a building, in his designer suits and shoes. She half expects him to slick back his hair, buy a pair of name-brand sunglasses, shiny like law offices. Whatever happened to that velvet jacket?

Buffy covers her face with the pillow, but she can still hear him typing. Something scripted, probably, something stilted and actor-y, something from someone with too tan skin. She half suspects Angel's a model, a surfer, a martini-flavored businessman with olives and a pro-boner boyfriend, conducting his ventures al fresco. Whatever happened to dust in sunlight?

At Wolfram and Hart they'd had tinted glass, he'd said. They'd had computers too, high tech. They'd had cars, new and latest. They'd had money and power. They'd had means to sell your soul and your mother's too, and buy evil at the price of blood and wine. Clothes and tanned beauties had been just fringe benefits. He'd stood with the world at his feet in a penthouse suite, basking in the sunlight.

Angel used to prefer the dark.

"God," Buffy says, sitting up in bed. "God! Angel, can't you just turn out the stupid light? God, I'm trying to _sleep_ over here."

Perchance to dream.

 

**vi. control**

Buffy's sitting in the driver's seat. Angel's standing at the open car door. "Come on. I want to drive."

"No." Buffy's looking down, playing with the keys, her fuzzy Paris keychain. "It's my turn."

"We take turns now?"

"Seems like we have to. Else you're always the one driving."

"What're you talking about?" Angel says. "You drive more than me."

Buffy just shoves the key into the ignition. The Paris keychain dangles. "What about those nights you go off?"

"I have my own battles to fight. And driving alone doesn't count." He leans in, takes the keys. He doesn't want to argue this outside. Their neighbor left out her dumpster by the curb. The street lamp is buzzing.

"If you can go alone—" Buffy gets out of the car—"why do I even bother?"

"Half the time, you're out slaying, you don't even tell me." Angel presses the keys sharp into his hands. The metal leaves imprints; the fuzz of her keychain wisps across his wrist. "I just want to drive. You can on the way back."

"I need your permission now?"

"Don't be like that, Buffy."

"Give me my key." Angel hands back her key. She gets back into position behind the wheel, and shoves it in again. She turns it; she revs the gas. Angel is still standing beside her door. "I'm ready; let's go."

"I don't feel like going any more."

She rolls her eyes, doesn't stop the car. "You can drive on the way back."

"No."

"Is that what you're going to do now, sulk?"

She looks good, ready for it, hands on the wheel, power at her back. "You speed," he tells her at last.

"You never know where we're going," she snaps back.

"I want to drive."

The car stays in the driveway.

 

**vii. banality**

The sheet wafts up into the sunlight over their laughter, until Buffy snaps the white corners together and steps to meet Angel's folded ends. Still laughing, he kisses her as she pushes her creases against his. They'd had to wash the sheets because of too much jizz and icecream. She should be happy.

"Why'd you wash this shirt?" she asks. "Wasn't dirty."

"It's very dirty. Why it looks hot as hell on you." He's getting the clothes out of the dryer to come put on the table. He should be getting her clothes off of her to make her come on the table. He's teasing her, dangling her bra from a finger. They're going out tonight and he's going to get lucky. He should be happy.

"Changed my mind." Smirks. "Like you clean." Brings a pair of panties to his nose—"Tide fresh."

"Now you sound like Spike. 'Cept he really did like me dirty."

He should roar, caveman style. Should climb across the table and claim her. Should be hunting Spike down. Instead, Angel stands there staring. Then he looks down to neatly fold her panties, mouth tight.

"Shit," Buffy says. She's fluffed pillowcase out to fold, and now its gone and knocked the vase off the sideboard. She steps forward, leans down, cuts her thumb on a piece of glass.

Angel rushes over and scrunches the pillowcase to staunch the blood, winding it around her hand. "It's okay. Just a scratch. Why are you crying?"

He should be leaning down to lick the blood. He should be fazing into gameface. He should be drinking her down. He should have lost his soul by now. She should want to die. The world should be over. "The pillowcase," she says. "It's stained now."

"We'll just do another load," he says.

 

**viii. repression**

Buffy's eating. Angel's not. "You alright?" he asks.

"Mmph?" wiping fingers, "Yeah, good."

"We could talk about it." He loves to watch her eat; her glossy, pouting lips kiss each bite.

"It what? Oh, Giles. I wonder if in England IVs are tea-and-scone flavored."

Angel waits. "What about tweed hospital gowns?" When it's him there's usually not that gentle kiss, that exploration, that slow acceptance; she opens her mouth and _inhales_, sucks his tongue, sometimes his cock, like she wants to swallow, taking him in like there's no--well, no time in the world.

She shrugs. "Got other things to worry about. Like how we could hit the non-Catholic cemetary tonight; you know how the vamps like those dead romance-y guys."

"Yes. Okay." She used to eat like that, too. Used to shove it all in with teenager eagerness, like there wasn't enough yogurt and tuna-burgers in the world.

"I'm really getting tired of the poetry puns though. If one more of them calls me 'darkling' their heart's going to leap up onto my stake."

"Wouldn't it anyway?" Talked the whole time too, stream-of-teenager, like she couldn't not tell him; talked while eating, sometimes showing half-chewed french fries, like she couldn't not show him everything inside of her, teenager grace.

"Yeah, but--Wordsworth? Aren't you impressed? Clever poetry-knowing Buffy? . . . Angel?"

"I wish you'd talk about what's wrong." Chews close-mouthed now, so adult, keeping it all in. Talks the same way too. She'll open her mouth to swallow down his dick but never hardly ever to take him inside.

"Okay, you want it? Want to know? I hate how you watch me eat. It's annoying; I go all Emily Post; why don't you just leave me alone instead of always watching me?"

On the outside, looking in.

 

**ix. estrangement**

"You got her an i-pod?" Buffy asks, huffing air. Shouldn't've gotten pink balloons. Dawn's favorite color's green, now.

"Yes." Angel is hanging streamers. "Don't we need cake?"

"We're doing tacos. Isn't that expensive?" Used to be Buffy'd give everything she had. Then she'd given up her life and come back to less, and ever since then she'd been savvier with give and take. She stops blowing before the balloon gets too full, and starts in on another. "I-pods, I mean. How do you even know what an i-pod is?"

"It's her graduation. She should have cake. And i-pods. She's wanted one for months."

"She never told me." Used to be Dawn was hers, no one to worry about the money but her, no one to worry about the cake and tacos and balloons but her. Angel shouldn't be a part of that. Angel couldn't even fill up his lungs, much less balloons.

"Maybe she thought you'd say it's too expensive."

Used to push her air into his mouth, used to blow his cock, and it almost made him breathe. She used to make his heart beat. "I'm not the one here funny about money."

"Don't start that again."

"All you care about." She used to be the only thing he cared about. Only one he took care of, loved, hated himself for. Used to be he was hers.

"We have to be careful with money. It can . . . it can do stuff like. . . buy clothes. Send a kid to college . . . something."

He didn't used to have a son. Didn't use to have to pay to forget the ones he loved. "You're stingy."

"Look who's talking. Quit the bitchfest, Buffy."

He didn't used to quote Cordelia.

He used to give her everything he'd had.

 

**x. love**

"Feels like home again," Angel says, walking through the graves.

"Grass is getting my skirt wet," Buffy says. "Should've driven."

"You mean you should've," Angel says.

"The reason we didn't is so you wouldn't start this."

"You start it. You say when, you say—"

"You boss me around in the bathroom."

"If you'd clean the damn thing."

"You—Get down!" Buffy yells. Angel ducks. Two vampires come out of the bushes. "We're fighting here." Buffy socks one in the nose and knees its groin. "Couple bickering, not end of the world fighting."

"One's more lethal than the other." Angel uppercuts the other. "You should know by now not to interrupt," he tells the vampire, and pushes it into Buffy's stake. As it falls to dust, Angel flips Buffy over his back, catapulting her at the other vampire, landing in a pile of dust. "Sorry," Angel says, pulling her up and kissing her.

"Me too." Strong arms wrap around his neck, then roughly push him into a tree so she can whirl to stake the last vamp he hadn't seen coming, her hair a fanning sprinkler of yellow, muscles moving over each other supple and smooth.

Slumped up against the tree, he grabs her by the wrist. "C'mere. God, I love you. God."

Frantic heat, Buffy's ruined skirt and Angel too hard later, Buffy says, "You were right. Feels like home." She shifts. "You know, without the bed. If we'd driven, we could be in it already."

"Not like bed's that comfortable. You never make it; it's a rag heap."

"Maybe because you kick in your sleep."

"Vampire don't kick. You snore."

"I hate the sheets you picked out."

"God," Angel says again, "I can't wait to make love to you."

"Neither can I. Grass stains come out, you know."


End file.
